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Monthly Archives: November 2014

Recently, the Buddhist holiday Loy Krathong was celebrated all across South East Asia. Loy Krathong takes place on the full moon of the 12th month according to the Thai lunar calendar. The holiday is normally celebrated by releasing floating lanterns made of out of flowers and leaves with candles and incense into a river. To the Buddhist worshipper the lanterns symbolize prayers offered to the river goddess Pra Mae Khrong, and are seen as a way to earn merit in order to achieve salvation and be released from the cycle of life.

In Chiang Mai, the former capital of the Lanna Kingdom, the Loy Krathong coincides with the holiday Yi Peng. Yi Peng is also celebrated on the full moon day but rather than using floating lanterns released in water, the people of the north release Kom Loy (flying lanterns) into the sky. We’re thankful that this year we were able to see the grand celebration. Seeing hundreds of lanterns released up into the night sky was truly beautiful. As we saw each lantern in the sky and floating in the water offered as prayers to their perspective gods and Buddha, we offered up prayers as well to our God who is Lord over all.

“You alone are Yahweh. You created the heavens, the highest heavens with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them, and the heavenly host worships You.” (Nehemiah 9:6)

We were also able to spend time visiting with some old friends and making new ones in Chiang Mai. We always enjoy being able to spend time visiting with our friend Bay when we’re in town. Bay is a graduate of the South Pacific Bible School (SPBS) in New Zealand and owns a well known coffee shop there. We love his missional heart and passion as he uses his coffee shop as a way to create community among his customers. We also had a great time going out to lunch and coffee with Ginny who works with Joma Bakery and Coffee. Joma is a Christian fair trade cafe that has locations in several South East Asian countries. Joma is all about improving peoples lives through social innovation and engagement. We love hearing stories about places like Joma and Bay’s Cafe, and how they use what they’ve been gifted with to bless their local communities.

We were invited to join the Chung Doi Church of Christ for a small weekend camping in the mountains. Our friend O (who is the most recent Thai graduate from SPBS) organized the event and did a great job! We ended up making an adventurous 10 mile round trip hike up to the peak of Doi Khun Tan mountain. It was nice to be able to get away from the city and enjoy Thailand’s natural beauty. We had a great time being able to visit with the Chung Doi church. Their love for one another and spiritual maturity was such an encouragement.

Back in Bangkok we’ve been having great turnouts to English Club at Suan Dusit University since we started in late September! We were shocked at our first class with the huge turnout of 60 students. Doubling our largest classes from the year before. We’ve had a blast teaching these energetic Freshman and look forward to getting to know them more as the year continues.

Last week we got back from our survey trip to Japan! We had a great trip and were spoiled by the cool Fall weather. With Japan being one of the most unreached Asian nations in the 10/40 window, and with the Japanese people being the second largest unreached people group in the world, the nation of Japan has long been on our hearts as a possible destination for future church planting.

Over our trip we were able to visit a few different cities. We wanted to see what ways God is currently at work among the people of Japan and what kind of possibilities God might have in store for us there in the future. Achieving this goal was not an easy task especially on a short time table so on our trip we tried to visit with local church leaders and to visit areas of Japan where church planting could be a possibility.

The Japanese rail system is the most advanced in the world and made our trip a whole lot easier!

After a one night stay in Tokyo (the nation’s capital) we jumped on a train to Mito (Ibaraki Prefecture). The stretch between Tokyo and Ibaraki has been nicknamed the Bible Belt of Japan since it is where there is the highest concentration of congregations. The number of churches is still very small, but with the church there being strong, it was a great place to go visit with local leaders.

Fun at the park in Mito!

We were able to spend some time with members of the Mito Church of Christ. They have a vibrant group of young people there. The church does outreach towards the Ibaraki Christian University and the Saturday night when we arrived they had a big bonfire on the beach. It was fun meeting people and enjoying the cool weather by the fire. We even got to enjoy some S’mores! On Sunday we were encouraged by our time with the church. We spent time in the afternoon hanging out with a few Christians at a park and enjoying the lovely day together! Later that night we went out to coffee with Joel Osborne who has been a missionary in Japan for 12 years now. We were able to pick his brain about all things missions and Christian in Japan. We’re super thankful for the time he gave us, and are excited about all that they are doing in Mito.

Coffee with Joel.

Leaving Mito, we hopped back on the train to travel to another small town in the same prefecture called Tsuchuria to visit with Bryan and Minako Snow. Brian and Minako are both old friends of Gary’s that he first met during his AIM training in Lubbock in 2004. Minako went to school at Ibaraki Christian and became a Christian during her time there. Over the past several years Minako has been our primary contact as we’ve been researching Japan. It was great being able to spend time with them. Their kids were super cute and while we were there Minako made an some amazing traditional local Japanese food for us! We loved our little visit with their sweet family!

Enjoyed visiting with the Snows in their home.

Our next stop was Kyoto! Being the historical and cultural center of Japan, things in Kyoto are much slower and more traditional than in Tokyo. We loved experiencing it’s rich culture and taking in all of the beauty there. It was Interesting visiting the temples in Kyoto and seeing the differences between the Japanese Buddhism (Zen / Shinto) and Thai (Theravada) Buddhism. We noticed how much less religious and ceremonial the Japanese were in their worship than the Thai Buddhist.

The final leg of our trip was spent in the Osaka area. We’ve been most curious about this region of Japan since it’s said that the people there are more laid back and open to new ideas and change than in the east. The people of Osaka have a long history of going against the grain of Tokyo and even speak their own Kansai dialect.

Todaiji Temple in Nara.

We spent a couple of days in the suburb of Nara. We had a really hard time finding hotels in Osaka since that weekend there were two home games of the much beloved Osaka Tigers baseball team. So while there we ended up staying at an Airbnb bed-and-breakfast run by two American twin sisters who grew up in Japan. We really saw it, in the long run, as God’s leading since we had such great time in the Nara region and with these cool sisters at their cute mountain home.

With our hosts Johnna and Reylia!

We really enjoyed the time we had with the church in Osaka on Sunday. The church we met with has been an active part of the clean up efforts in Ishinomaki from the 2011 tsunami. We’ve followed their efforts from that time and have prayed many times for their work with the Japanese people. It was great to finally meet some of their group! On Monday we began our very long journey back to Bangkok. We had a 61/2 hour flight from Japan to Malaysia and then an overnight layover in the airport in KL for 71/2 hours. Then continuing on another 2 hours to Bangkok. Upon landing we were immediately greeted by Bangkok’s infamous heat, traffic and crowds of people. It’s strange to think how big Bangkok still seemed after having been in Tokyo the largest city in the world.

With the church in Osaka.

Please continue to keep our ministries here in Thailand in your prayers and our future in missions as well. Over the next year we will be developing our next steps for church planting here in Asia. Pray that God gives us wisdom and discernment as we consider our long term field location for church planting. It’s heavy on our hearts right now, but we’re excited about how God will use us to further His kingdom in Asia!